Waterborne Polyeurethane Wood Coating

[Bill Packman]

<Long time reader, first time poster>

I run a small scale shop making one-off pieces but have recently stumbled upon a design which is getting quite popular and I can't keep up. I have been using a prep process which saves a lot of time but I am worried I am missing something...

Problem is I live in China (wife and I moved here from London in 2009 "for a year or so" and have been here ever since), and the products I have at my disposal are very limited.

I am making a simple kids chair from painted 15mm ply and after much experimenting with the various Chinese products I have a process which seems to work:

After a few 120 sands, fill gaps, then a final 400 sand I take a pot of white "Waterborne Wood Coating (Polyeurethane)" (see attached file), fill the bottom inch of a large container with a 50/50 water mixture, submerge and swish the parts very briefly (1 second - max), 1hr to dry, dip again, overnight dry.

Giving it a final going over with the 400 produces an excellent surface on which to apply the paint (acrylic) and a single coat, followed by a top coat produces a nice even finish - even on the notoriously hard to finish plywood edge grain..

Can any of you more experienced folks let me know if I am making a problem for the future. Is there anything in this process which will come back to bite me?

Thanks

Bill

IMG_20160926_101723.jpg

[Wayne Lomman]

Based on the information you posted, there is nothing that stands out as a problem. Not being in China I don't have first-hand experience with the products however. Can you get hold of technical data sheets? If so, study them and make sure you are not breaking their rules too severely. Good luck. Cheers

[Bill Packman]

Cheers Wayne.

Seems that my little system works quite well. The process of finishing the plywood edges was so laborious as the grain was sucking up coat after coat of whatever I put on it. I experimented with car body filler, with super glue and with a finger smoothed layer of wood filler but the finish was never quite right.

Now all I do is dip and move on! There's still a fair amount of waiting between 'dips' (to let everything dry off properly) but at least the application of each coat takes seconds rather than minutes.

Would recommend to others in a similar situation.